Ericka Hines of Every Level Leadership and her network launched this project to deeply understand and provide data about Black women in the workforce. I’ve just starting reading and already find it full of compelling, clear data and recommendations. So I don’t want to wait to spread the word. From all Ericka’s good work, comes possibility for the rest of us to take action. THRIVING!
One of the things my “lying fallow” period has afforded me is more time and focus to learn about important things I have either avoided or missed. Racism and white supremacy are some of the big ones. So as I review old blog drafts, there is sadness to see how I picked up signals in 2014 but did little to nothing to act on them. Yeah, “too busy” is a crap excuse. So with a dip back to 2014, I realized some part of me was picking up on equity issues, and on decolonization (which really confused me at first and it is a huge embarrassment. I apologize.)
So take a stroll with me back to On Equity Issues in the Maker Movement, and Implications for Making and Learning | Empathetics: Integral Life. As usual, you will get more out of this by reading the full, original post, but I appreciated the lessons, as they are another example of how boundaries trick and fool us, and finding ways to bridge across them (even if we create those same boundaries in our own minds).
There are some lessons that I think we can glean from these examples, lessons that can be heeded by others interested in making and learning who want to make sure we keep equity at the heart of the conversation. The first lesson is to bridge making practices into valued cultures of non-dominant youth. Dreamyard, as an example, has teens creating musical instruments, and brings fashion crafting into its programming. The second is to link making practices with taking action on social justice issues. Both NySci and MOUSE do this when they, respectively, engage in making for the purposes of shedding light on environmental conditions in a neighborhood or creating technologies that make life easier for those with disabilities. And a final lesson is to design maker education initiatives with, not just for, local communities. Brooklyn College Community Partnership is a wholly grassroots organization, and in figuring out what the maker movement might mean for their educational programs, they made sure that a full range of stakeholders, especially youth, were at the table. In many ways these lessons are not new – theories of culturally relevant pedagogy, funds of knowledge, co-design and participatory design would all suggest creating learning environments in similar ways. We just need to remember to continually apply, and advance, such ideas as we explore this intersection of making and learning.….
…And we can look to examples that are rooted in the work of innovative, equity-oriented educators to see what good practice looks like so that, as Buechley says, the new boss doesn’t look the same as the old boss.
I am continuing my learning journey, making mistakes along the way. I don’t write about it much because I worry that that is all writing, no action. So this is a rare moment.
Dang, now THIS looks like fun!
One of the challenges among scientists is to describe the work they do in language the rest of us can understand. That’s the idea behind a new program at the University of Tennessee that uses music to bridge that communication gap.
The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, or NIMBioS, isn’t a place for intellectual lightweights. The whiteboards are tagged with the frenetic graffiti of advanced math, and the conversations are dense with the mysterious jargon of advanced science. So the last thing you’d expect to see there is an office door with a sign reading, “Songwriter in Residence.”
Jay Clark is one of five Songwriters in Residence who will move in and out of NIMBios this year. Each has one month to write two songs that put the scientific experience into words and music.
“A week and a half, two weeks ago, when I told someone about it, they’d look at me like, ‘What the hell you going to write?’ ” Clark says. “My answer would be, ‘You know, I’m not real sure yet. I’m just hoping it will come to me.’ “
The Songwriter in Residence program is the brainchild of NIMBioS director Louis Gross. Gross noticed that the scientists and mathematicians with whom he works aren’t always that good at communicating their ideas in a concise, accessible way. Moreover, he says, most people don’t really have the time or patience to wade through complicated explanations of scientific theory. As a result, we don’t always have a good sense of what scientists are doing.
“The better that we are at getting the ideas across without going into all the detail that often people are not that interested in, the better off we are as a nation and as a community of scientists,” Gross says.
My face split into a grin when I read Carl Zimmer’s article, Swine Flu Science: First Wiki, Then Publish in Discover Magazine. This collective mobilization, weaving together emergent scientific findings, is what so many people in international agricultural research and other areas have been evangelizing. This is not to diminish the role of external validation – it is important. Amazingly important. But it is only one end of the spectrum of validating research and application.
First, about the Swine Flu wiki. Then I’ll circle back to external validation. From Carl’s article:
Last month I scrambled to write a story about the evolution of swine flu for the New York Times. I talked to some of the top experts on the evolution of viruses who were, at that very moment, analyzing the genetic material in samples of the virus isolated around the world. One scientist, whom I reached at home, said, “Sure, I’ve got a little time. I’m just making some coffee while my computer crunches some swine flu. What’s up?”
All of the scientists were completely open with me. They didn’t wave me off because they had to wait until their results were published in a big journal. In fact, they were open with the whole world, posting all their results in real-time on a wiki. So everyone who wanted to peruse their analysis could see how it developed as more data emerged and as they used different methods to analyze it.
Carl goes on to write about the wiki work-in-progress, the final publication in the journal Nature, and the Creative Commons license on the article – so we can all read it when it is published.
When should this be the common research pattern, instead of the exception? Carl suggests “With this sort of urgent situation at hand, the patient process of old-fashioned science publishing may have to be upgraded.” But what about important things that move slower, like international agricultural research which has at its core a mission to feed the world. Why should slower, “less sexy” science eschew the new practices of open access research? It is most often public governmental or private foundation money funding this work. In the case of public money, that is you and I, citizens of many countries. And what foundation in its right mind would want to stifle advancements that might help achieve missions?
So why isn’t this standard practice? I’m no genius, but one barrier is how research science is taught and rewarded – in any sector. The old “publish or perish.” Couple that with the competition for funding, generating a deep seated need to say “we invented it here in our institution, give us more money,” and you have the recipe for hoarding.
We are not talking about some pharma’s latest top secret moneymaking designer drug here. We are talking about research supposedly in the public interest.
So what is a facilitator to do about all of this?
First, we can support scientists with practical and straightforward wiki collaboration tips and practices. Open up our wikis to the world. What if every talented online facilitator could be available to support any group of scientists who wanted to collaborate in their pre-publication research work. Some organizations are clearly doing their part to support this effort, but what if we could make our little bit of magic available to help? Are we ready appropriately speak and support in the language of science, research and international development? If not, what do we need to do?
Second, we can support external validation of new ways of doing research intended for the public interest.
Time and again people ask how to gain support for strategic learning, knowledge sharing or social media initiatives from their leadership. They tell me they get big fat “no’s” with a laundry list of excuses. This is often true in the application of social media in scientific research. How do we convince management, they ask? Or perhaps more relevant, how do we make a cogent case for the researchers and the institutions and how do we validate those cases?
One tactic is to muster external validation.
By external validation I mean tangible support or recognition for work done within an organization by an external voice as well as general recognition about the value of the practice in question from outside the organization. Carl’s article is an example of the latter. We should be pointing to it like crazy in research organizations. When the Nature article comes out, round two!
Getting the former can be something that emerges, or something you stimulate. Let’s look at both ends of the spectrum.
One of the first lessons I learned about hosting and facilitating online conversations was “Assume Good Intent.” As I read someone’s words online, this approach was practiced before I reacted, to assume the writer “meant well.” A breath before reacting. I have to say, it did keep me from writing overly reactive posts…sometimes.
This practice came out of hosting in the Electric Minds community, and later on The Well and other online communities. In his tip sheet on The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online, Howard Rheingold talks about “assuming good will.” It made so much sense to me that it became one of the cornerstones of my online facilitation workshops. My assumption was that if people practiced good intent, gave each other the “benefit of the doubt,” all would be well. Or at least less bad. 🙂
What I missed so blindingly was who gets the power to assume good intent. And that someone’s good intent could be coming from a well of white supremacy. This all blossomed into my consciousness with a post on LinkedIn by the astute Tara Robertson.
Tara pointed me to Megan Carpenter, who wrote something much more useful.
“I’ll give you grace if you give me effort”
Megan Carpenter
That feels like it makes the responsibility clear for each party, and not excuse a lack of care or grace under the flag of “good intent.”
It is funny, now I’m seeing the words “good intent” everywhere I look, and I am consciously trying to reshape my language towards grace and effort.